The Lies Music Tell
by Cairnsy
Summary: A simple afternoon becomes less of one, when the past of one of the Chosen refuses to stay there.


Author's notes: Thanks again to the wonderful Kimague *hugs*. 

**The Lies Music Tell. **

It was the music that drew them to the window. A throaty voice laced with feminine wistfulness, the rhythmic beat of drums interlaced with the aching wail of a solo guitar. Beautiful, lyrical. Powerful enough to mute the annoyed toots of car horns and the frantic bustle of faceless people who were part of the crush on the sidewalk. The music shop had not been one of the places they had planned to stop off at along the way, especially not this one, tucked between a fashion store displaying the latest American labels and a dairy. It is the type of shop that Matt in particular always avoids, popular music with little substance, pretentious sales personnel who knew nothing about music except that which was currently featured in the top twenty. Shiny floors and bright lights, false smiles and falser music. 

But even he stops when the others do, glancing at the series of televisions in the shop window, all playing the same music video. The sound filters through the open door, somehow making its way past the grotesquely overlarge poster of the new flavour of the week's airbrushed face without becoming tainted. TK bounces on his heels at his older brother's side, while Kari actually hums slightly, obviously having heard the song on the radio previously, even while the others haven't. 

"She's pretty hot." 

It is a typical comment from Tai, who doesn't mind visiting this kind of music shop at all, with its mediocre yet beautiful singers wrapped away behind CD covers closer to soft porn than a physical representation of the music inside, or perhaps it is a perfect representation, after all. Still, he finds that, despite his taste for the usual soft porn fluff, he has been accompanying Matt more and more to his sort of shops, the diverse ones that are hidden down back streets that have flaking posters of old jazz players and play music often devoid of any singers at all. 

"And at least in her thirties." It is spoken almost hesitantly by a quiet boy with black hair that bleeds blue. Ken Ichijouji is there only because his best friend is, who is sure to have his own opinion on the matter. He always does. 

"Still though, man. I'd date her." On cue, Daisuke joins the conversation. And the singer is beautiful, lanky and long, hair whisked back from her face in purple and blond streaks as she glances out over the microphone, pale eyes aiming for soulful and managing to obtain it. While Ken is surely right about his thoughts regarding her age, she has a youthfulness that attracts two of his companions. 

But while it is her looks they comment on, it is the music that captivates them all. It is just that it is easier to put into words the wonder of the physical than the impact something can make on ones soul. Besides, guys don't really discuss that kind of thing. Not when half of Tokyo is flowing around you with muttered curses and occasional bumps as they try to make their way past. 

That Kari doesn't mention it is simply because she doesn't feel the need to. Secretly though, she thinks the woman is beautiful as well, in a foreign and mysterious way that almost detaches her from the real world. Kari can't imagine this woman washing dishes or having a family waiting for her somewhere. 

Matt simply watches, his face carefully neutral. He's not even sure what he's thinking; it's impossible for anyone else to. 

It is Daisuke who groans when the song ends and the screen fades away. It is a disappointment that is short lived however, as the following shot is of the same singer in an interview situation. 

"Welcome to the show, Kami Jojo," The interview starts. Kami Jojo. So that is her name. Tai frowns for a moment, there is something familiar about it. "Your new album has been five years in the making, but the critics are already predicting a top placing in the charts with it at the end of the week. How does it feel to be back at the top of the music industry once again?" 

Her answering laugh is pretty, although Matt seems to hear a sharpness there that evades the others, causing him to wince. It goes unnoticed by all but his best friend, whose frown only serves to grow, before slipping away unnoticed as the interview continues. 

"Oh, it feels wonderful." Smooth and elegant. "The album has been a long time in the works, and we are all very proud of the results." And you can tell that she at least is. Her words flow as sweetly and as soulfully as her music had, an honesty there that not even the most cynical can deny. Of course, they will still try. 

The spell shatters the moment the conversation turns away from music. It startles all of them, for they had all been caught up with the woven magic of her words as they had her song. 

"I'd love to settle down and have children," Kami speaks now, her words suddenly tainted by falseness. It is a shade she doesn't wear well, one that clashes violently with her music. "One day, perhaps. I can't imagine anything more wonderful than having a child of your own." 

She doesn't hear a heart breaking, nor does she see blue eyes die grey. The interview took place several days ago, after all. Besides, even someone with as powerful a voice as Kami Jojo hasn't yet learned how to see people on the other side of a television set. 

Pity, that. 

Because she cannot hear and because she cannot see, she continues on. The places she would take a young child, the songs she would dedicate to him. Kari almost believes that she perhaps would like a baby, but only because it would be the perfect accessory. Cynicism is not a shade Kari wears well, either. But at least it has its base in honesty. 

Daisuke's thoughts are less pure. He glares, betrayed, at the woman on the screen. Lies told through lyrics have revealed themselves through her. He would have preferred never to have heard her speak, to instead simply have been allowed to believe innocently in her music and the artificial illusion it had offered. 

Tai bites his lower lip. He knows her. Knows the face, the name. Not the music, he's certain he's never heard the music; for it is something he doubts he could have ever forgotten. He knows if he could simply place her in a different context, one which he is more familiar with, then some vital piece will fall into place. At the moment, he doesn't even know what the jigsaw is that he's trying to put together. 

If only she had never spoken, all of them would have been content. 

This time they all flinch when she laughs - it would be hard this time to mistake the falseness that stains her light tenor with anything with even a hint of substance. And yet, yet … no one else seems to notice. Not the interviewer who smiles sadly, not the audience that the camera pans over, all obviously infatuated with the lovely singer. Not the small crowd that has joined the initial group of five on the pavement in front of the window, murmuring about how beautiful she is and how sad that she doesn't have the child she so desperately wants. 

Then, it is over and the loop begins again. Half way through the first verse of the song that had drawn them there in the first place, they silently slip away, regrouping as one further down the pavement, far enough so that they can no longer here even a whisper of Kami Jojo. 

"I liked her purple streaks," Kari says finally, the silence is too much for her, too heavy with disappointment. 

"I preferred her legs," Daisuke smirks as he speaks the words. "Not to mention her-" 

"- glasses." It is Ken who interrupts his best friend, glaring disapprovingly. "Wasn't Yolei looking at a pair like those last week?" 

"Who cares?" Daisuke shrugs, causing Ken to shake his head, a slight smile playing tantalisingly at one corner of his lips. The conversation started, they all begin to chime in, commenting on how nice the shirt she had been wearing was or how her eyes were the same shade as Matt's, the fact that the interviewer was almost as cute – not to mention at least ten years younger - and the size of the audience. Ten minutes, twenty minutes. 

So easy, to talk only of the superficial. 

No one once brings up her actual music. 

They part at the train station; Tai and Kari racing up the steps to only just catch their 5:02 ride in time, Daisuke and Ken walking onto the next stop. The two blonds part with warm words, promises of future outings exchanged. 

A perfectly fine ending to the day, yet Tai remains unsatisfied. He has not found his missing piece, and it bothers him with a persistence he doesn't quite understand. Kari doesn't either, although she attempts to. Alone in his room, dark eyes fall on a photo placed preciously on his desk, a photo of friends he shared an adventure with when only eleven. He traces a finger driven by reflection across each of the figures, stopping when he comes to sparkling blue eyes of a youthful blond who is standing beside his younger self. 

Suddenly, he has found his piece. A CD cover stumbled on while at Matt's, hidden far beneath his friend's usual collection of more 'deeper' music. Matt snatching the CD and the familiar face imprinted on it away quickly, a faint blush dancing across his cheeks as he muttered something about the CD not being his, or being a gift from some relative. Even then, Tai hadn't been able to figure out which Matt meant. 

Yes, he remembers now where he has seen before those dazzling eyes, the slight smile. He remembers the hair, although devoid of streaks and a far more natural blonde. He saw them years ago, not long after they had returned from the Digital world. 

He also sees them everyday. 

The missing piece has a very Matt-like shape to it. 

* 

The streets are not as busy as they were earlier, a side effect of rush hour having past. Deep in withdrawal, the pavement still echoes with phantom footsteps, although there is only the one person who is there to hear them. Hungrily, the concrete swallows all the sound the lone boy makes, the gentle patter of shoe, the soft swish of clothing billowing slightly in the wind. It knows that he is retracing in rewind footsteps that were taken earlier, and it knows when the boy comes to a stop in front of the music shop. It doesn't know that usually perfect blond hair is almost as ruffled as the boy himself appears to be, nor of the hurt that is slashed through brilliant blue. Concrete can't see, after all. 

But perhaps the breeze that is playing in that said hair will tell of it all later. 

The series of television sets still play on their endless loop, although now there is no sound and bars have been slammed down in front of the window to prevent burglars from attempting to break in. The crisscrossed nature of the bars segments each of the televisions, and Matt wonders if this is how the world looks like to a fly. It's a fitting thought, somehow. If he is anything, it is merely a fly on the wall, allowed to watch from a distance, but never being allowed to participate. An unneeded bother, a pest. A far too dangerous risk when it had come to a career that had been fledging many years ago. 

He watches, unable to drag his eyes away. Even without the sound, he knows when the interview has reached the part where Miss Kami Jojo laments about her desire for children. The lack of sound makes no difference, for he can still hear her perfectly. The words that were important had been the ones said in silence, after all. 

_"And she has your eyes, Matt!" TK broke in with a grin. "Although her legs are more like Mimi's – yours are far too scrawny." _

He nods as she doesn't mention how having a child now would enhance her career, where as say, oh, let's be random - 15 years ago, it might have destroyed it. He ignores the ring of his cell phone as she continues on in that wonderfully mute voice of hers on how important her beliefs are to her, and even if she became pregnant by accident, she would never abort the child – heavens no! Of course, her beliefs don't cover hiding the 'accident' from even her own family and then dumping it with the fling who was responsible for the whole thing. What kind of religion preaches putting a child before your own career? 

A pale hand presses against the window, the coldness of the pane tingling down slim fingers and across his palm. Matt wonders if that is what she feels like, the calm, controlled Miss Jojo. 

She certainly feels that way on his side of the window. 

A voice that sounds very much like Matt's own quietly begins to recite words and phrases which are sure to make little sense to the ears dropping wind, little sense in fact to anyone, unless they happen to own the collective works of Miss Kami Jojo. Each album is documented in soft words, each single placed carefully in chronicle order. The mantra that has taken on a quiet desperateness only falters once, somewhere between album number three and album number four. 

He speaks mute words as well as Miss Jojo does. Even the concrete can hear the silent questions that are merged with each mentioned title, and it waits curiously for the television sets to respond, wondering if the reply will be what the boy is after. 

But there is no answer. Silent or otherwise. 

The list finishes just as Miss Jojo starts singing once again. Matt returns to simply watching, memorising the way she moves, how she slides a hand down the back of the mike stand. He knows he could mimic her perfectly, although he has always had enough stage presence of his own that it would seem pointless to try and adapt that of another. He has always done so, however, ever since he snuck home one of her concert tapes from the video store back when he was twelve. He is just as perfect as she is at flicking back her head or smiling in amusement, has mastered the way she let her eyes roam carefree over a crowd. Having the videos there to teach him was better than the real thing. 

Really. 

Really. 

_She has your eyes._

"No," he whispers – those who know him only from tonight would be of the opinion that he doesn't have the ability to speak any louder. He suddenly turns away from the televisions, turns painfully away from Miss Kami Jojo, not noticing that his cell phone has yet to stop ringing, nor the way the wind has died down a touch to make sure it can catch each of his words as he heads back towards the train station, back towards home. 

"I have hers." 

He quits his band in the morning. 


End file.
